Why is Change.org hosting a petition for Michelle Rhee's group, Students First?

NYT: test cheating charges vs. Rhee in DCPS amid test cheating charges from Georgia to New Jersey

The New York Times this week ran a story (Michael Winerip), "Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal") with this shamed-looking Rhee photo on how Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools has been generous with her access to a range of news interviewers, yet she has refused to speak to reporters at USA Today. As the Times noted, the test erasure charges swirling around Rhee come at the same time as allegations of cheating in Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Rhee's whole self-promotion campaign has come from her argument that her get tough methods of attacking teachers and stressing tests over everything were successful. Yet, erasure analysis raises plenty of suspicious red flags. Translation: Rhee's success is illusory, contrived:

At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.

Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.

BRIAN JONES on DEMOCRACY NOW!

REAL ACTIVIST (as opposed to the anti-education deformers) Brian Jones (Grassroots Education Movement or GEM) (updated: appeared) on Democracy Now, tomorrow, Friday, August 26, 2011,
along with Diane Ravitch.

Local radio broadcast time: WBAI, 99.5 FM, weekdays, 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM.
Click here for TV, radio, Internet broadcast times.

UPDATE
Click to this post of essential quotes on Education Notes.

Judge Helps Bloomberg Score Big Hit vs. Working Mothers

JUDGE SUPPORTS BLOOMBERG L.P. IN DISCRIMINATION SUIT RAISED BY BLOOMBERG MOTHER EMPLOYEES

MOTHERS NEED NOT APPLY? - NYC SCHOOL PRINCIPAL ASKS ATR IF HER BEING A MOTHER WOULD CONFLICT WITH HER TEACHER DUTIES

IS ANYONE SEEING A PATTERN HERE?


Sometimes the blockbuster stories come in the summertime, when the subjects of the stories are spared the full exposure that they might get in December.

A federal judge has issued a decision in favor of New York City Mayor's Bloomberg L.P., a decision that is wincing in its harsh language. The language is further disconcerting in that it underlines how much the mayor, the legal system and our economic system (I dare not say society, since I would hope that people would not brazenly hold such sentiments) hold working mothers in contempt. Additionally, the judge supports companies' expectations that workers work far in excess of a forty hour week. (In a strange irony, this sickeningly insensitive judge is a woman.)

Toward the start of Mayor Bloomberg's term, employees of his Bloomberg L.P. charged that he was not in any way accommodating to women employees that needed time to care for their children. One employee charged that Bloomberg said, "Kill it," advising the employee-mother to abort her pregnancy. (For those that wonder about this quote, Google it. I have included a link to a Guardian (UK) 2001 article on the matter., Ed Vulliamy, May 20, 2001, "Is Michael Bloomberg the new Citizen Kane?" An excerpt is tucked below.) Just remind people, this is a privately held company, further indicating that the company's policies stem from the boss.

Judge Loretta A. Presko issued a decision that rejected the women plaintiffs' claim that Bloomberg L.P. discriminated against mothers and mothers-to-be.
Some legal decisions go down in the history books as glimmering testimonies to the law working for justice. Others, such as the Dred Scott decision, as noxious and inhumane, a disgrace to the principals of law. Presko's decision and her language fall into the latter category.

As Elissa Gootman in "The New York Times" reported, in "Bloomberg Discrimination-Suit Ruling Renews Work-Life Debate,"

“The law does not mandate ‘work-life balance,’ ” she wrote, in a decision issued on Wednesday.

Sonia Ossorio, executive director of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women properly said,

“She hardly hides her contempt for women with kids who have ambition and want top-paying jobs,” Ms. Ossorio said. “If you read her comments, she says that basically if a workplace culture is work 24/7, then they have a right to have that type of culture.”

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said,

“It feels like a throwback to the era when women were forced to choose between work and family — an era that I had hoped we had graduated from[.]”

Now to the "kill it" quote, as cited in the UK Guardian:

After her doctor told Sekiko Garrison she was pregnant, in 1995, the top sales executive with a major finance company went to inform her boss of the good news. 'Kill it,' he reportedly said. Ms Garrison, aghast, asked him to repeat himself. 'Kill it,' he repeated.

These words, as readers of New York's press now know only too well, were alleged to be those of Michael Bloomberg - the mogul of the markets whose name is synonymous with Wall Street and who now wants to be the next Mayor of the Big Apple . . . .

Look to the stories in "The Village Voice" in 2001, "Bloomberg’s Sexual Blind Spot: Testimony of Would-Be Mayor Bares Indifference to Harassment, Misinformation on Rape," and in New York magazine in 2009 for further discussion of the context of this quote, and the employee in question. Here is a Village Voice archived link to an excerpt of Bloomberg's 1998 deposition on the matter.

A twisted insistence on a round-the-clock work culture
The idea that people should devote nearly all their waking hours to the job is obscene. Unfortunately, corporate heads are now assuming that this is as things should be.

Jack Welch, a figurehead influential to Bloomberg said, (here quoted from the same Thursday Times posting): “there are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” As the Times noted, Judge Preska echoed these words in her decision, to support her/ the mayor's position: “In a company like Bloomberg, which explicitly makes all-out dedication its expectation, making a decision that preferences family over work comes with consequences.”

As a sad reflection of how some women executives have endorsed this kind of thinking, Kathryn Wylde of a "business coalition" of which Bloomberg L.P. is a part, said, “I am among the first generation of ‘liberated’ women professionals who took for granted we would have to sacrifice personal time and family life to achieve our professional goals. Younger women tend to assume ‘equality in the workplace,’ along with the notion that they can and should ‘have it all.’ I don’t think that is possible for men or women, and certainly not in the competitive environment of New York City.”

Who should have it all, dear executive, the corporation or the working person?

PRINCIPALS INCORPORATING THE 24/7 WAGE SLAVE EXPECTATIONS OF WELCH/BLOOMBERG:



Back to our question of who should have it all, should the principals have it all from their employees, or may the latter "have a life"?
The principals, apparently, in the following example expect the former concept:
A new blog, "NYC ATR" has a contribution from a job applicant that was subjected to numerous illegal questions from a potential supervisor (principal) regarding her status as a mother: "The Interview II, in which My Kids Become a Concern
ANOTHER INTERVIEW TALE," by Life in Limbo, August 19, 2011

Note how a common thread running through the account is the principal's expectation for the teacher to work far beyond an eight-hour day.

The first signs of trouble from the principal:

Her [the principal's] entire demeanor changed as soon as I said, “per-session.” She said, “Now you know in these times that budgets are tight. I heard you say that you would do this per-session, but I am wondering if you would still be as enthusiastic about this if we could not pay you.” I went on to explain that I already do this activity after school and on weekends and that I am paid when I do. I told her that volunteering my time instead of being paid would impact my availability as I would be hesitant to give up a paying gig only to replace it with an unpaid one--this would be the equivalent of taking a pay cut. Her face froze at that point, and the temperature in the a/c-free room dropped by at least 20 degrees.

The principal in the clincher, reflecting thinking that is thoroughly reflective of the employee as wage-slave to the enterprise that Welch/Bloomberg envision:

“As the parent of young children, I have to ask if your parenting responsibilities and child care situation would prevent you from being able to fully devote yourself to doing whatever it takes to move this school forward.”

Bloomberg has his stamp throughout the institution of the Department of Education L.P. Through his Leadership Academy he has groomed principals to expect superhuman performances from teachers. This interview reflects the sexist and inhumane expectations of principals that are in tandem with the mayor's expectations at Bloomberg L.P.

And people wonder why we want unions? Sekiko Garrison, the target of Bloomberg's alleged "Kill it" instructions, is an example of why corporate professionals need to shed their disdain for unions and seek unionization themselves.

NY Times / CBS News Poll: Bloomberg's Support at Lowest in Six Years

The New York Times reported today, August 16, 2011, that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's popularity ratings are at their lowest this month, since six years ago:

"Poll Finds Bloomberg’s Approval Rating the Lowest in 6 Years."


We have to remember that the last times that New York City's mayor had such low ratings among polled city residents was in the 2002-2003 period, when the region was still recovering from the economic effects of September 11 and before that the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble.

Read through these numbers of New York City mayors' poll numbers. The views on mayoral job performance and condition of the city's economy have not been so unfavorable since 2003.

Read the full story by David W. Chen and Marjorie Connelly in "The New York Times."

Did He Just Say That?! Mayor Bloomberg Slurred Black and Latino Men

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating $30 Million in an effort to aid African-American and Latino men.

He was interviewed on the PBS Newshour last night (August 4, 2011). The problem is, his language was a might patronizing, and given the gross generalizations in his comments, racist.

When he referred to crime rates he said, "If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators [of crime] are, it's virtually all minorities." (Emphasis added.)

Many white Americans have made attempts to be sensitive with their comments, both in the substance and in their choice of words.

Not so with Mayor Bloomberg. Here we have someone who opines nearly every business day on policy matters. We find it hard to believe that this was an impassioned slip of the lip.

Let's be clear: Blacks and Latino do not commit virtually all crime, nor are they virtually all the victims. Slick generalizations such as Mr. Bloomberg's are akin to the kind of thinking behind the differential prosecuting and sentencing of darker skin toned criminal offenders compared to lighter skinned offenders.

Here is the essential quote from the PBS Newshour interview transcript, I am critiquing, again, with emphasis:

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Well, for a long time, people have said there's nothing you can do about it.
But blacks and Latinos score terribly in school testing compared to whites and Asians. If you look at our jails, it's predominantly minorities. If you look at where crime takes place, it's in minority neighborhoods. If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators are, it's virtually all minorities.
This is something that has gone on for a long time. I assume it's prevalent elsewhere, but certainly true in New York City. And for many, many years, people said there was just nothing you can do about it. Now, what we have done in the last 10 years is we have cut the testing gap in schools for black and Latino kids vs. white and Asian kids in half, but they still are way behind.
We have tried to diversify our police department, so that it really does measure the -- mirror the community's ethnicity. And they have brought crime down dramatically. We have the lowest crime rate we have ever had in the history of the city. And that's particularly important to black and Latino kids and their families and their neighborhoods, because that is where the crime is.
So they benefit from that. And we have done a number of these kinds of things, trying to attract the kind of jobs that are available to people who maybe don't have a formal education, have dropped out of school, or don't have great command of the English language, or have a blemish on their resume which would keep them from getting a job at a more traditional firm where they do an extensive background check.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well...
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: And so we have tried to attract industries that can use the people here who are unemployed.
But, nevertheless, there's this enormous cohort of black and Latino males aged, let's say, 16 to 25 that don't have jobs, don't have any prospects, don't know how to find jobs, don't know that the -- what their skill sets are, don't know how to behave in the workplace, where they have to work collaboratively and collectively.

Bloomberg with his donation is trying to help the unfortunate, or at least, help his image. Had he been a more sensitive speaker he would have taken great pains to emphasize that men with criminal or dysfunctional behaviors are a minority in the Black and Latino communities. We did not hear words representative of the majority, for example, "trust-worthy," "peaceful" or "law-abiding." Instead, Mayor Bloomberg, an influential public personality, has done a disservice by perpetuating racial stereotypes in the minds of lesser informed sections of the public.

Aside from the dissent voiced on Mark Riley's morning show at WWRL, as referenced in the Daily News, "Mayor Bloomberg donating $30M to minority youth causes skepticism among radio listeners" and a critique at the Mediaite blog, I have seen no dissent on this project.

Big Stories on Test Cheating in NY Times and Daily News -in Middle of Summer when Fewer are Noticing; Similar Cheating Concerns Across Nation

(SCROLL DOWN FOR STATE SURVEY OF TEACHERS ON CHEATING)
Convenient for administrators, and city executives, embarrassing stories about schools and test cheating encouraged by administrators are hitting the news, when more people are at summer get-aways.

Sharon Otterman, Review Aims to Avert Cheating on State Tests

New York State education officials announced Monday that they had begun to review the way they detect and prevent cheating on standardized tests, taking a step to avoid the cheating scandals that have engulfed school systems in other states.

New York does not conduct statistical analyses of its high-stakes third- through eighth-grade tests to scour for suspicious results that could signal cheating, like unusual spikes in a school’s scores or predictable erasures on multiple-choice questions, officials said.

Analyses in Atlanta and Philadelphia, among other cities, have produced evidence of tampering on a scale that calls into question those cities’ educational achievements.

The State Education Department released a brief statement on Monday saying that the education commissioner, John B. King Jr., had convened a high-level working group in mid-July to begin an immediate review of “all aspects of the state’s testing system.” Officials said details would be available soon.

All aspects? I'm not holding my breath.

New York state should send a Michigan-type survey of teachers on cheating pressures. See "About the school cheating survey" (Detroit Free Press, July 27, 2011) on the Michigan Educator Survey. Nearly 30% of the surveyed teachers reported pressure to cheat.


And another quite interesting tidbit, broadcasted about nine years too late: Prince Michael I (Mr. Bloomberg) cut the funds for investigations of test cheating in 2002, immediately after assuming mayor control of the schools:

Rachel Monahan, yesterday in the New York Daily News: "NYC drops controls to ferret out cheating on high-stakes standardized tests."

34 NJ Schools Investigated For Possible Cheating:
Officials: Some Schools Showed Especially High Deviations Of Corrected Answers

In Michigan, teachers feel compelled to cheat

Alas, in many western and southern states the school year is starting in a week or two. In these states the scandals or "probes" are getting attention at an inconvenient time for policy bigs.
Pa. Joins States Facing a School Cheating Scandal Actually, this covers the Georgia scandal as well.

And Education Week gives us a thumbnail of cheating scandals in the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): "Cheating Scandals Intensify Focus on Test Pressures"

Consider that the policy maker/ media pundit beating up of teachers does not consider the role of administrators. A common thread of these stories is that administrators, not teachers, are the source of the pressure to cheat.

Will all of these scandals prompt education "reformers", media pundits and politicians to rethink their mania for tests and data emphasis? Let's hope so.

Times front page article questions how Joel Klein can objectively and effectively conduct internal investigation of scandal at News Corp.

The New York Times has this story on the front page of its Sunday, July 24, 2011 edition:
"Former City Schools Chief Emerges as Murdoch Ally,"
This article is by Jeremy W. Peters, Michael Barbaro and Javier C. Hernandez.

(The final paragraph has the crucial point.)

Joel I. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, was in a tricky position. Three weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch asked Mr. Klein, now his trusted deputy, to oversee an investigation into the phone hacking scandal that has deeply wounded the News Corporation and its chairman, something Mr. Klein was eager to avoid.

“I am trying to get as far away from this as I can,” he lamented to a friend.

He has not succeeded. Mr. Klein, who joined the News Corporation as a senior vice president in January, is not only responsible for the investigation that could uncover what company managers knew about the hacking, but he also has become one of Mr. Murdoch’s closest and most visible advisers throughout the crisis.

His seemingly contradictory roles — de facto chief of internal affairs officer and ascendant executive with Mr. Murdoch’s ear — are raising questions about how robust and objective the internal inquiry can be. When Mr. Murdoch summoned a team of top deputies and outside consultants to London to help him manage the fallout from the hacking, Mr. Klein was one of the first to arrive, moving into a temporary office 20 feet from the chairman’s.

NOT STANDARD CORPORATE PRACTICE

Top lawyers and experts in corporate governance said the News Corporation should have hired outside legal counsel to oversee the inquiry, as dozens of companies like the American International Group and Fannie Mae have done in the past, rather than rely on an insider.

“That is not standard practice,” said Charles M. Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “You cannot be seen as objective if you are inside.”

Weak school discipline leads to family grief and neighborhood mayhem

I have previously written in this blog about the problem of poor discipline, or serious class misbehavior in New York City Public Schools. Highly frustrating and disappointing, from a professional stand-point is supervisors' or administrators' essential unwillingness to enforce punishments against disruptive students, violent students or students that "play" in a dangerous manner. Teachers are scolded against reporting violent misdeeds. Growing numbers of administrators in the era of Bloomberg/Klein/ Black and Walcott actually hold teachers responsible for the incidents-- propagating the notion that if only teachers did a better (read more entertaining) job of "classroom management" no violence would occur.

Furthermore, students pick up on how there are no punishments. Some crafty students pick up on the stock scolding phrase by supervisors against teachers, "you can't control your class." When administrators blame teachers for boring or alienating the students and then stone-wall against issuing any punishments against violent or otherwise disruptive students, then the charge about being unable to control the students becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

But I have said this all before. It is important to remind the public, in light of recent public events, of the context around such misbehavior. First, this spring there were local television reports about how a middle school in East New York, Brooklyn was the site of a girl' jabbing another student with a hypodermic needle. It is no wonder that such outrages do not occur more often. For, administrators berate teachers when they alert the administration to warning signs that presage such behavior. A second telling anecdote was the riot trashing of one Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Dunkin Donuts shop by a mini-flash mob of teenagers. I would bet that one lesson that the students in each story had long ago learned in school was that there are few consequences for disruptive or aggressive behavior.

CHILDREN NEED SOME RULES AND CONSEQUENCES FROM PARENTS

The "b" word is not how I refer to students, but the following article makes some points that policy "leaders" and parents need to consider:
(July 2, 2011 LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor, "Permissive parents: Curb your brats")
The author addresses the "kind of parent who allows your 5-year-old to run rampant in public places like restaurants" or airplanes or grocery stores.

[W]e know you don't discipline them at home because you don't possess "the look." If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say "sit down" a thousand times.

If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say much of anything at all. But this nonverbal cue needs to be introduced early and reinforced diligently with consequences for transgressions, just like potty training. And whenever a kid throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the shopping mall it's just as bad as his soiling his pants to spite his parents, and it stinks just as much.

And teachers are supposed to create discipline in the classroom when there has been none outside of the classroom.

Numerous commenters spoke of this in the comments page to a New York Times article Thursday, July 18 that had an enabling tone for the students subjected to suspensions.

I am a parent. I want my children safe at school. I send my children to school for education, not so that they can take part in babysitting students. Teachers are supposed to "teach," not handle disruptions from unruly children and young adults. It does not seem appropriate to ask our schools to become "rehibilation" centers, like jails, for children who have no respect for themselves and others.

. . .

Teachers are there to teach, not raise kids. The curriculum should include scholastic subjects, not life skills. Those are parental responsibilities.

. . .

One New York City middle school teacher in Brooklyn, on her first year teaching:)
The principal's solution when I asked for help was to threaten me with dismissal if I couldn't control my class. The assistant principal suggested, when I pleaded for guidance, that I just quietly move next to the disruptive student and stand there; not touch the kid, just make sure he or she knows that he or she is out of order. This was somewhat less effective than the useless call home. . . . We need to understand why other countries are able to teach their school children in quiet, controlled classrooms.

. . .

I find it profoundly significant that the word "parents" never occurs in this article. As long as parents continue to abdicate their responsibilities to others (schools, the government, churches) the dysfunction illustrated in this article will either stay the same or get worse.

Stacking in favor of Charter Schools -Chicago Mayor Daley's "last middle finger"...

This is a tip-off from democraticunderground's "Madfloridian":
"Mayor Daley's "last middle finger" to public schools. How the odds are stacked in favor of charters."
Madfloridian wrote:

This story illustrates how easily public schools are painted as the problem, while it is never mentioned how often they get students returned from charter schools....because they are unable to meet the standards.

That Mayor Daley said such a thing shows how clueless some of the political leaders are about what is really going on....how these schools "counsel out" non-performers and send them back to public schools so they won't affect their scores.

From the Chicago Reader.

Charters unload problem students onto neighboring public schools - then reap the benefits.

An earlier post with this contribution at Chicago Teachers Union site:
"Stacking the Odds in Favor of Charter Schools"
BY BEN JORAVSKY FOR CHICAGO READER | 04/14/2011

A key excerpt:

On February 16, the Union League Club gave out its Democracy in Action award to deserving local high school students, and Mayor Daley was on hand to give a rousing speech—calling on regular public schools to make like the charters and transform ordinary neighborhood students into high-scoring, high-achieving, college-bound stars. Specifically, the mayor was hailing Urban Prep High School, a south-side charter school. But his unspoken message to all teachers was "work harder and stop whining."Consider it one last middle finger from Daley to the teachers and their unions because—well, why not?

Watching it all with a mixture of revulsion and disbelief was Eric Wagner, a social studies teacher at Kelvyn Park High School on the predominantly Hispanic northwest side. "I was there because one of my students—Jennifer Velazquez—had won the award," says Wagner. "I'm thinking, this is really inappropriate. There aren't even any charter school kids who won the award. Why is he ripping us?"


A public school student won. The charter students did not. Mayor Daley was either spinning or he actually did not know. Either way is a slap in the face to the public schools and to the winning student.

Prince Michael's Daughter Georgina Writes "Tell-All" Novel on Father Grinch

The New York Times, which used to be a darling of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has allowed some cracks in the relationship.

It published Tuesday May 31, 2011 a notice about how Mayor Bloomberg, is, shall we put it, disappointed in his horse-riding daughter Georgina.

The background article by Julie Bosman and Michael Barbaro, "Mayor’s Daughter, Hints of Family Life."

And excerpts from Georgina's novel, "The A Circuit," introduced by Bosman and Barbaro.

Bush-McGraw-Hill Test, Financial Ties --Be Alert to Pols' Self-Interest with Tests

When there are millions --make that billions, in some markets, such as New York City-- to be made in test to the test, test-driven teaching,
non-stop "assessments," beware!

One blogger picked up on the long, intense financial ties between George W. Bush's family and school test publisher McGraw-Hill:
"McGraw-Hill & Bush: The Graft and the Twig,": "Bush Ties Prove to Be Lucrative" August 3, 2006, William L. Bainbridge of the "[Jacksonville] Florida Times-Union"

Country western singers Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have been getting far more attention than the publishing giant with a similar name that has been quietly gathering in our tax dollars like a hungry squirrel getting ready for winter.

With sales of $6 billion in 2005, publishing giant McGraw-Hill, no relation to the talented musical performers, produced an annualized return of 19% last year. Critics of President George W. Bush's administration have been vocal about the Bush and Cheney family ties to defense contractors at a time of war and, more recently, to their ties to the price gouging gasoline producers. Few, however, have noted the close and profitable relationship between the Bushes and the leadership of McGraw-Hill.

President Bush has managed to keep his family's nearly eighty-year relationship- with the McGraws alive and well - - a relationship that, according to THE NATION, began between the President's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and James McGraw Jr., great uncle of current McGraw-Hill Chairman Harold McGraw, III in the 1930's. (Link to Stephen Metcalf's "Reading Between the Lines." in "The Nation" magazine.)

While it is generally understood and accepted that exchanging favors among business friends in the private sector is common practice, the ethics of such practices between government officials and private business interests is another matter. Examples in the defense arena and among Washington-based lobbyists such as Jack Abrahoff have been broadly documented. Such patterns have contributed to the downward spiral that has resulted in record low public approval ratings for the current President..

Less visible are relationships in other sectors that have proven to be no less lucrative. Consider the following:

· Our state governments will have spent as much as $5 billion with private firms in the next two years in direct costs to develop, score and report the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" law tests designed to record student performance. This is the estimate from the federal Government Accounting Office. Only four companies tend to control test development: (1) CTB, a testing division of McGraw-Hill, (2) Texas-based Harcourt, (3) Illinois-based-Riverside and (4) London-based Pearson. McGraw-Hill's CTB division appears to be dominating this lucrative new industry with contracts in nearly half the states. Is it because they have a superior product and entered into the criterion test market arena first? The test publishers have spent millions with officials in government and at some foundations on reforms that produce more corporate profits rather than substantive benefits for students.

· The National Reading Panel adopted standards for a heavily scripted phonics program, favoring the nation's largest phonics publisher, McGraw-Hill's "Open Court." McGraw-Hill's representatives dominated the panel and the same pubic relations firm worked on the federal plan that promoted "Open Court" in Texas, under then Governor George W.. Bush. The findings were billed as "scientifically based" built on its "success" in the Houston Independent School District. This alleged success has since been found to be predicated on an educational statistics numbers scandal.

· U.S. government speakers at conferences have been accused by education leaders of crossing an ethical line by endorsing McGraw-Hill products including "Open Court" and SRA/McGraw Hill's "Direct Instruction."

· The Association of American Publishers (AAP) sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education indicating concern that some programs were receiving explicit preference. "We request that you again clarify that there is no federally approved list, in this case for assessments, for which Reading First funds can be used," AAP said.

· Harold McGraw III, whose companies are major beneficiaries of federal education funds to school systems, was appointed a member of the current President's transition advisory team.
. . .

Read on at original post.

So, activists and other concerned citizens need to ask:
what vested interests do government executives or legislators have in pursuing standardized tests ad nauseum with school-children?